One of Donald Trump’s mouthpieces lashed out after being confronted over the president’s dubious account of his role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
The 80-year-old president added another chapter to his long-running 9/11 mythology Tuesday as he spoke at a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
“The United States Steel Building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down,” he began, launching into a rambling story about being “rescued” by firefighters from a building just yards from the Twin Towers.
“We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen—big, strong guys, and I’m not the smallest guy in the world—they grabbed me under the arm, said, ‘Got to get out of here!’ And they literally lifted me up,” he continued, speaking on stage near a display of structural steel that had fallen from the towers that day.
“This is not easy to do. I’m big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, ‘Fellas, I can run myself’ – but they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn’t come down.”
The president did not say when the alleged incident occurred.
Trump was in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan when hijacked planes struck the towers. Trump Tower is two and a half miles away from the World Trade Center and the U.S. Steel Building he mentioned in his story—now One Liberty Plaza.
The president’s latest 9/11 tale sparked immediate backlash as people began pointing out the holes in his account.
But instead of offering evidence to support Trump’s story, White House spokesman Davis Ingle melted down when pressed by CNN reporter Daniel Dale, framing the questions as an “attack” against his boss.
“President Trump spent the morning paying tribute to the heroic first responders who laid down their lives in service to others in the September 11th attacks and honoring their incredible families,” Ingle, 32, began, before launching into a tirade.
“The President was relaying his experience of a city reeling immediately after and in the days and weeks after the horrific attacks - and the fact that the failing legacy media is using this to try to attack him is a disgrace and yet another reason why Americans’ trust in the media is at an all-time low.”
Ingle got his bachelor’s degree in communications and master’s degree in business administration from Southeastern University, where his father, Kent Ingle, is president. The Florida-based institution boasts that more than two-thirds of its students attend online or through extension courses at 200 “partner sites,” which do not have to be accredited.
In several interviews on September 11, 2001, Trump talked about the other building he owned in Manhattan—40 Wall Street—and boasted that with the Twin Towers gone, his was now the tallest building in the city.
He has claimed for years that he was at Ground Zero with a large crew of his workers helping with the recovery in the days after the 9/11 attacks, but people on site have said they never saw him or a Trump-organized crew.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
